[Python-Dev] Is the 2.0 xml package too immature to release?

[Paul]

On Fri, 15 Sep 2000, Mark Hammond wrote:

> [Andrew]
> > I'd be more inclined to blame the XML-SIG package;
> 
> Definately.  This XML stuff has cost me a number of hours a number of
> times!  Always with other people's code, so I didnt know where to turn.

The XML SIG package is unstable. It's a grab bag. It's the cool stuff
people have been working on. I've said about a hundred times that it will
never get to version 1, will never be stable, will never be reliable
because that isn't how anyone views it. I don't see it as a flaw: it's the
place you go for cutting edge XML stuff. That's why Andrew and Guido are
dead wrong that we don't need Python as a package in the core. That's
where the stable stuff goes. Expat and Minidom are stable. IIRC, their
APIs have only changed in minor ways in the last year.

> What is going on here?  We are forced to rename a core package, largely to
> avoid the cooperation of, and avoid conflicting with, a SIG explicitly
> setup to develop this core package in the first place!!!
> 
> How did this happen?  Does the XML SIG need to be shut down (while it still
> can <wink>)?

It's not that anybody is not cooperating. Its that there are a small
number of people doing the actual work and they drop in and out of
availability based on their real life jobs. It isn't always, er, polite to
tell someone "get out of the way I'll do it myself." Despite the fact that
all the nasty hints are being dropped in my direction, nobody exercises a
BDFL position in the XML SIG. There's the central issue. Nobody imposes
deadlines, nobody says what features should go in or shouldn't and in what
form. If I tried to do so I would be rightfully slapped down.

> But IMO, the Python core has first grab at the name "xml" - if we can't get
> the cooperation of the SIG, it should be their problem.  Where do we want
> to be with respect to XML in a few years?  Surely not with some half-assed
> "xmlcore" packge, and some extra "xml" package you still need to get
> anything done...

It's easy to say that the core is important and the sig package is
secondary but 

 a) Guido says that they are both important
 b) The sig package has some users (at least a few) with running code

Nevertheless, I agree with you that in the long term we will wish we had
just used the name "xml" for the core package. I'm just pointing out that
it isn't as simple as it looks when you aren't involved.

 Paul Prescod